Back to school

At the age of 41, Sue Simonds graduated from the Lewis and Clark Community College two-year nursing program.

Twenty years later, she is still working as a registered nurse at the Alton Mental Health Center and still enjoying every second of it.

"I think it is what I'm supposed to be doing," said Simonds, who lives in Bethalto with her husband, James. "I love nursing and having the chance to make a difference in people's lives."

In 1991, her husband had lost his job and was having a hard time finding another one. She decided to get a job in retail, but it was getting more and more difficult to make ends meet. Simonds was encouraged by her mother-in-law, Eileen Simonds, to go to school to become a registered nurse.

"My mother-in-law is my inspiration," she said. "A similar thing had happened to her in the 1970s when my father-in-law lost his job and she decided to go to school to become an LPN."

But this time around, Eileen Simonds told Sue Simonds to become a registered nurse.

"During my first year of nursing school, it was a Pell grant I received that made it possible for me to even attend school," she said.

In her second year, she was worked as a nurse's aide at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Granite City. Through the program, she was able to receive tuition reimbursement if she committed to remaining at the hospital for at least two years after graduation.

After graduating in 1992, Simonds went on to become an oncology nurse at St. Elizabeth's but was laid off in 1994.

She was then hired part time on a general medicine floor at St. Anthony's Hospital in Alton. But she was forced down to one day a week when there were changes to the floor.

But in January 1995, she was hired as a registered staff nurse at Alton Mental Health Center.

"When I was younger, I thought about becoming a nurse. And I think at that time, I lacked the confidence to do it," she said. "But it was my mother-in-law who helped me gain the confidence to go back to school and become a nurse."

Going back to school later in life is a hard decision, Simonds said, but not an impossible one.

"It's very hard," she said. "But if you have the motivation, the determination and the support from friends and family, it's possible."

Simonds did attend college before having children. She obtained her secretarial associate's degree from Belleville Area College, now known as Southwestern Illinois College, and worked as a secretary for two years. She became a stay-at-home mom after her children were born.

Around the same time that Simonds started nursing school, her husband got a job as an administrative assistant with Madison County, where he is still employed.

The couple has two sons, Christopher, 38, and Joseph, 28.

"My youngest son was 6 when I started going back to school," she said. "My mother- and father-in-law would take care of him in the mornings when I was at school. I had a lot of support, and that was so important."

In recent years, Simonds said she had noticed many older adults - men and women - completing their nursing rotation at the mental health center. Even her own nursing class 20 years ago only had two recent high school graduates and mostly women in their 30s and one woman in her 50s.

"It's a hard journey, but someone should never use their age as an excuse as to why they can't go back to school," she said. "It's never too late to start."

Simonds hopes to retire in the next several years and maybe try something new again.